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Zack
Zack is the main protagonist of the Followed series, and one of the school children who witnessed the first walker. Life Before the Apocalypse Not much is known about his life before the Apocalypse. He was born in 1994, and is 20 years old in the present time. He was born in Colorado and mentions that he has family there. At some point before 2007, he moved to Apex,North Carolina. He became friends with TJ, one of the students at his new school, and several other children. In 2007, he and TJ met outside after school, expecting their friends, who were missing. TJ hears an alarm on his phone and angrily states they are late for something. While taking a shortcut to get to TJ's house, they come across an abandoned greenhouse that was at least 20 years old at the time, however TJ had never seen it before up to that point. While trying to get around the greenhouse, they hear a pair of voices and decide to investigate. While they investigate, they notice a British scientist and his assistant in the ruins. They were experimenting with some sort of chemical agent that had the capability to turn people into zombies, but the zombies produced were not dangerous and simply telepathically controlled by the scientist. However, the assistant accidentaly smashes the cure for the agent, forcing the two to continue without a failsafe. However, the experiment goes horribly wrong, and the zombified assistant goes into a rage, killing the British scientist and attacking the two children. However, TJ and Zach manage to beat him to death and run from the scene. Life During the Apocalypse Day One: Seven years after escaping the walker, an unknown individual accidentally releasing the zombie disease around the world, starting the apocalypse. When the apocalypse strikes, Zack and TJ were on summer break from college in their home neighborhood, keeping away from zombies that have sprouted up everywhere. They run into a house whose garage door has been left open. Inside they are confronted by a crawler, but Zack falls and grabs a gun off a nearby wagon. After shooting and killing the crawler, they decide to go inside before the other walkers in the neighborhood noticed them. They go to the second floor and discover an automatic rifle with limited ammo on a bed. They decide to check another room, where they encounter two wary survivors named Phillip and Ryan P. They decide to band together, and leave the house as the location was overrun by walkers. Right after leaving the house, they split up to deal with the walkers roaming outside.(Events of episode one, part one.) Zack attempts to shoot a walker, but ends up wasting a magazine and provokes them. They charge at the survivors and one leaps on Phillip and bites him fatally on the neck. Zack and TJ proceed to execute the two attacking walkers. After Ryan regroups with them, they are approached by two strangers, Matt and Jorge, who were battling walkers behind the house and were attempting to find out what was going on. When Phillip starts to turn, Matt executes Phillip, despite Zack and all others present protesting against the action. The gunshot attracts more walkers, who pile around the area. The group attempts to kill the zombies numerous times, however they rise again each time. They retreat down the hill until the walkers are far behind. At this point, Zack and Matt have discovered Paul's dead walker form, and proceed to carry him to the others who have discovered another survivor named Alex. Zack takes an antidote from Matt's backpack and successfully revives Paul. They find an injured zombie in the street and attempt to kill it by separating it's spine, but only succeed in crippling it before they decide to return to the house, as they were running low on ammo. While returning, the area was swarmed by walkers attracted by the gunfire. The survivors set off at a run, successfully making it back to the house and closing the garage with no more fatalities.(Events of episode one part two.) Day Two: After hiding in the house for a day, Matt, Paul, and Ryan search for survivors, while Zack and the others stay behind. Matt returns while Ryan and Paul search for supplies. Matt relays the news that another group of surviors was "all gone". While the others incapacitate a walker and bring it to the house to test for weaknesses, Zack remains in the house and finds some cell phones in the basement, and works on a form of communication. After numerous tests, Matt slits the back of the zombies neck and finds the weak spot, and the survivors celebrate. After Ryan and Paul return with weapons and some clementines and water bottles. They set out again, Zack checks the food stores guarded by Jorge and Alex. He decides to go on a supply hunt with Matt, somehow knowing to go to the middle school where he saw the first walker seven years before, despite having forgotten about the incident. When he and Matt arrive trying to get inside and retrieve school lunches left over from before the outbreak, he faints after breathing fumes released from the greenhouse, and has a strange flashback where he sees himself and TJ in the nearby woods, taking a closer look at an object obscure to him. After he wakes up, he retraces his steps and remembers the events that transpired there. Zack and Matt sneak up on the greenhouse and see two hostile bandits searching the ruins, trying to find the golden ring of a miner who had his neck snapped by one of the bandits. While Matt sneaks through the nearby forest, Zack kills one bandit by shooting him in the head with his sniper rifle. While firing on the other bandit, his weapon is jammed and while he tries to fix it, he is hit by another bandit in the back with a baseball bat, which causes him to have another flashback of the walker attack that resulted in Phillip's death. He wakes and sees a bandit looking strikingly like Phillip holding him at gunpoint. Just before he is executed, Matt shoots the bandit twice in the back. After Matt kills the last bandit, they pick up a trove of weapons, a bin with enough food such as oranges and gummy worms to last for weeks, and a camcorder showing research on the zombies. (Events of episode 2.) Day Seven: Five days after the visit to the greenhouse, Zack returns from another supply run, and demands to speak to TJ. After walking to the side of the house, he tells TJ that he got a call from his family in Colorado, and decides to leave with TJ when the others went on their next supply run. Ryan and Jorge were already hunting for supplies, and when the others left to perform their own supply run, TJ and Zack made their move. After stealing food, weapons, ammo, and other supplies, they left a note simply saying: "Sorry, had to go." With no gas in the nearby cars, they leave the house to walk to Colorado on foot. Just after leaving the house, however, they are knocked unconscious by an unknown assailant, later revealed to be the leader of the Greenhouse Bandits. After Alex and Paul return from a second supply run to compensate for the stolen supplies, Alex gets a message from Zack's phone. The message stated that Zack and TJ had been captured, and that they would be released if Matt was brought alone and unarmed to the greenhouse. (Events of episode 3) Personality and Characteristics Zack is a very responsible individual, and cares very much about the lives of his fellow survivors. However, he can be prone to acting without forethought, a good example was attempting to travel from North Carolina to Colorado on foot, leaving the other survivors with barely the amount of supplies they needed to survive, and attempting to kill a zombie without knowing how, leading to Phillip's death. He has become hardened by the hostile world around him, as he killed one of the Greenhouse Bandits without showing any emotion at all. Killed Victims Unknown amount of zombies One Unnamed Bandit Relationships TJ: Zack and TJ were best friends during their childhood, and went to the same school. They are very close friends and care more about each other than the other survivors, seeing as Zack only brought him along during his failed attempt to travel to Colorado. The fact that TJ followed him also shows the two trust each other. Matt: The two had a stable relationship, and they trusted each other enough to go supply runs together, and even became friends. However, when Zack and TJ abandoned the other Apex Survivors, Matt decided not to look for them, as he understood that Zack needed to go, and left Zack and TJ to their fate. Jorge: The two have never interacted often, however, they seemed to get along well with each other, and sharing many of the same qualities, such as willingness to take risks. In episode two Jorge shows general concern for Zack, proving that the two are friends. Ryan P: Zack was shown to not trust Ryan initially, stating to TJ that they had no option but to join Ryan and Phillip, but trusted Ryan enough to let Ryan join him and TJ. Phillip: The two did not trust each other, but remained together for survival. However, Zack was upset that he caused Phillip's death and tried to stop Matt from shooting Phillip. Later, when Matt was contemplating on slicing a zombie's neck with a knife due to the danger of being bitten, Zack mentioned Phillip, asking Matt to kill the zombie for him. The context in which Zack mentioned him showed that Zack still felt remorse for being responsible for Phillip's death. Alex: Zack trusts Alex, and the two seemed to have a stable relationship, seeing as Alex wanted to look for them after they abandoned the group. Paul: Zack does not trust Paul, seeing as he wasn't sure if he would turn again. Likewise, Paul decided not to go after Zack and TJ after they abandoned the group, seeing that they made the choice to abandon them and instead leaves them to their fate. Trivia Zack has appeared in every single episode and has more screen time than any other character. Zack, along with Jorge, must have known Paul before the apocalypse or was at least familiar with him, having known his name prior to Paul himself ever mentioning it. Zack is one of three characters to kill another human character, the others being Matt and one of the Greenhouse Bandits. Out of these, only Zack and Matt have killed a human character on-screen. Zack seems to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.